Acquisition will enable increased speed and flexibility in delivering integrated disposable solutions
April 5, 2006 — /Millipore/ — BILLERICA, Mass. — Millipore Corporation (NYSE:MIL), a leading provider of products and services that improve productivity in the laboratory and in biopharmaceutical manufacturing, today announced that it has entered into an agreement to acquire Newport Bio Systems, a provider of process containers used in biopharmaceutical production. Founded in 1985, Newport Bio Systems was one of the first manufacturers of bioprocess consumable products in the industry and has been a pioneer in designing and manufacturing flexible solutions for leading biotechnology and pharmaceutical customers.
The addition of Newport Bio Systems’ single-use process containers, which include bags and liners, to Millipore’s Mobius(tm) disposable solutions will provide Millipore with the industry’s broadest range of disposable products. By manufacturing all of the components of an integrated disposable solution, Millipore will eliminate the need for its customers to validate multiple products from multiple suppliers. Millipore will be the only Company in the industry that can provide biopharmaceutical companies with a comprehensive disposable solution that is manufactured, assembled and validated with one quality system. The transaction reflects the Company’s strategic focus on increasing its presence in the disposable manufacturing market and builds on its acquisition of NovAseptic completed last year.
The use of disposable solutions allows biopharmaceutical customers to reduce downtime in their plants, reduce the amount of facility space needed for biologic production, and eliminate a substantial portion of their cleaning and validation requirements. Millipore’s Mobius solutions include a suite of disposable technologies-filtration products, process containers, connectors and valves-together with design, validation, and support services required to integrate and deliver a complete disposable solution. The flexibility of the Mobius solution allows customers to customize their assemblies to meet their specific process needs and to support their stringent validation requirements.
“Our goal is to become the leading provider of disposable manufacturing solutions to the biopharmaceutical industry,” said Martin Madaus, Chairman & CEO of Millipore. “The addition of Newport Bio Systems will enable us to strengthen the breadth of our offering and bring new capabilities into our Company. We will be the only supplier in the industry that owns all of the major disposable products and has process expertise required to deliver fully assembled and validated solutions. The adoption rate of disposable technologies from stainless steel components is increasing rapidly, and acquiring the expertise to manufacture process containers will put us in an excellent position to further optimize the production efficiency of our biopharmaceutical customers.”
Newport Bio Systems offers a range of disposable process containers, tubing manifolds, and assembly systems for collecting, storing, and transferring process fluids used in biopharmaceutical manufacturing. Its process containers are available in sizes up to 2,500 liters. Millipore plans to maintain Newport Bio Systems’ site in Anderson, California.
About Millipore
Millipore is a leading bioprocess and bioscience products and services company, organized into two divisions. The Bioprocess division offers solutions that optimize development and manufacturing of biologics. The Bioscience division provides high performance products and application insights that improve laboratory productivity. Millipore has a deep understanding of its customers’ research and manufacturing process needs, and offers reliable and innovative tools, technologies and services. The Company employs approximately 4,800 people worldwide and posted revenues of $991 million in 2005.
For additional information on Millipore Corporation, please visit its website at: www.millipore.com.
The matters discussed herein, as well as in future oral and written statements by management of Millipore Corporation that are forward-looking statements, are based on current management expectations that involve substantial risks and uncertainties which could cause actual results to differ materially from the results expressed in, or implied by, these forward-looking statements. Potential risks and uncertainties that could affect Millipore’s future operating results include, without limitation, failure to achieve design wins in our pharmaceutical and biotechnology customers’ manufacturing design phase for a particular drug precluding any sales of our products to those customers for those particular drugs; suspension or termination of a customer’s volume production; lack of availability of raw materials or component products on a timely basis; regulatory delay in the approval of new therapeutics, and their ultimate commercial success; the inability to establish and maintain necessary product and process quality levels; the inability to realize the expected benefits of development, marketing and other alliances; competitive factors such as new membrane or chromatography technology; the inability to identify or successfully integrate acquired businesses; difficulties inherent in research and development activities; the failure to attract and retain critical personnel; the inability to achieve anticipated cost benefits of our supply chain initiative; risks relating to our concentration of principal manufacturing operations; the inability to utilize technology in current or planned products due to overriding rights by third parties; potential environmental liabilities; conditions in the economy in general and in the bioscience and bioprocess markets in particular; foreign exchange fluctuations; reduced private and government research funding; exposure to product liability claims; and difficulties inherent in transferring or outsourcing of manufacturing operations. Please refer to our filings with the SEC, including our most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K, for more information on these and other risks that could cause actual results to differ.
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